Nigerian man narrates an encounter during a trip with religious people who took turns praying at the top of their voices without considering other passengers.
According to a Twitter user identified simply as @johnysky22, he passed a message on the hypocrisy of the religious people on the bus with him by buying kola nuts to worship deities loudly just as they did.
“I once entered a bus from Enugu to Abuja, as always as the journey began, Christians in the bus asked the driver to turn down the music that they wanted to pray, he obliged. The prayers began in ernest, singing, praises, casting and binding etc, afterwards the journey continued.
I for one felt it was unfair for every passenger to be subjected to an involuntary not minding whether they were Christians or not. I decided to pay them back in their own coin.
We got to Flyer Over where these boys stand to hawk kola, I bought a piece then called out to the Driver to tune down the music that I wanted to pray. He did and the whole bus fell silent.
I began by invoking the ancestors, invoking ezechitoke, eze bu na agu, pouring out traditional prayers and suplications the best I could all the while breaking the kola.
Gradually mood inside the bus began to change, hisses here and there, some audibly mumbling and I could swear some where countering the prayers with holy ghost fire. I did not flinch despite the disapproval, a guy behind me was more than happy to be responding, “Iseee!” to my
Prayers.
I spent nearly 10 minutes praying, stretching it for as long as I could afford and not break down laughing. After the prayers, the hisses and mumbles came like an applause. I gave kola to the guy behind me, offered to everyone around and they summarily ignored me.
Some women even behaved like we were quarreling, another man at the back of the bus clearly amused also took the kola. After there was an awkward silence for minutes, only the sound of kola being chewed was heard.
A woman broke the silence ”
“Bia nna a kedu ụdị nonsense bụ ihe a imere?” she asked.
“exactly ụdị nonsense gi wa mere too” I responded.
“How did you do this here knowing we don’t practice this fetish nonsense with you?” she asked again.
“Exactly the same way you did yours without minding that not all of us practice the same fetish delusional nonsense with you” I replied.
The whole bus mumbled, the guy behind laughed so hard, he was enjoying the exchange.
I ended up spending the next 10 minutes preaching about a lesson in hypocrisy, the usual bible preaching evangelical session we get in buses just me preaching about hypocrisy and how even Jesus abhorred hypocrisy.
Goes without saying that we had a rather awkward journey
Until after Lokoja before people started to unwind more. Though the woman beside me rolled her eyes a lot at me and made sure there was at no point that her body would touch mine which I greatly appreciated.”
